(The following article by Alan Daniels was posted on the Vancouver Sun website on October 22.)
VANCOUVER — Having just spent half a million dollars to buy two small railways in the eastern U.S., Canadian National Railway remains interested in buying BC Rail, a spokesman said Tuesday.
“Financing is not an issue,” CN Vancouver representative Graham Dallas said.
But he said that since CN responded to a provincial government request for proposals a month ago, and being shortlisted along with CP Rail and U.S-owned OmniTRAX, nothing has been heard from the B.C. government, which has said it wants to privatize BC Rail.
“We are still waiting,” Dallas said. “Basically, it’s up to the government of B.C. and we have heard nothing in terms of timing.”
Meanwhile, BC Rail is having to spend millions of dollars to repair its main line after floods and rockslides caused by recent heavy rains.
Spokesman Alan Dever said the railway is continuing to serve its customers despite “serious damage” along a 160-kilometre stretch of rail line north of Squamish.
It will likely be the middle of next week before the line is repaired.
In the interim, Dever said BC Rail freight is moving on CN Rail track under a “detour arrangement” with the national railway.
“For our customers north of Lillooet we are tracking up to Prince George and then along the CN line to wherever,” Dever said. “It probably adds a day to our service. Fortunately, most of our customers are from outside the area affected.
“We are a freight railway and the freight is moving. Given the circumstances, we have to be very pleased with that.”
Heavy rain causing rockslides has damaged parts of the track from north of Squamish to an area north of Pemberton.
“There were pockets of very serious damage, particularly in the Garibaldi region and the Rutherford Creek bridge, north of Pemberton,” Dever said. “We have been working around the clock and fortunately we got a bit of a break from the weather yesterday. We were very concerned that more rain would cause more damage.”
Dever said BC Rail’s engineering team reacted quickly to the situation.
“The whole railway pulled together very quickly and started reacting to this damage as it was occurring.”